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I, for one, am grateful for your question. The more I can learn about the lifecycle and growth parameters of cubensis, the better I believe I'll be able to grow them. There are many details of cultivation that experts may take for granted or consider obvious, and they may not include them in their otherwise excellent teks. As a teacher once said, "The only lame question is the one not asked." (paraphrased)

I like this question. Most jars I make end up on the overmoist side and go kapooey. Then you have agar for example which is the most recomended way to start a strain on. Have you tried asking this in advanced growing? Perhaps the pros might have a possitive insite.

Quote:dalorean said:I like this question. Most jars I make end up on the overmoist side and go kapooey. Then you have agar for example which is the most recomended way to start a strain on. Have you tried asking this in advanced growing? Perhaps the pros might have a possitive insite.

Thanks dalorean - I thought my question was fairly obvious until I got some responses, now I'm having trouble explaining myself!

I've got this disconnect going in my brain regarding the line between liquid culture and solid substrate...

I guess another way of puting it:

How much solid substrate does it take for a liquid culture to cease being a "liquid culture"... and how much water content does it take for a solid substrate to cease being a solid substrate... the points where either of the two is optimal is unclear to me.

I feel like the more I try to explain the rift, the larger the rift becomes.

At the risk of totally making a dunce out of myself, I'll go further:

I earlier had this idea - that later became clear was a somewhat common practice - of adding substrate material to LC in order to give a boost to the myc by predisposing it to the target substrate medium.

So, the next logical question was: how much solid substrate material became detrimental to the LC? The next question after that was: "why does it become detrimental?"... Followed finally by: "Well, why is being completely saturated in water good for LC, but bad for actual bulk ( or spawn, or pf ) colonization? And where then exactly is the line between a good LC and an oversaturated bulk substrate?"

Solids introduced to a LC would make it no longer an LC. The point of an LC is to fill syringes. If you wanted a solid version of a LC you can use grains. Then you can put chunks of spawned grain into jars that aren't colonized. If you put too much water in your grain, you'll get contams. If you put solids in your LC you won't be able to fill syringes. That's some sort of distinction..

One of the primary benefits of the common/standard liquid culture teks, is visibility - to help spot contams and to monitor the progress of the myc; which is why adding solids to LC is not the norm - because doing so greatly reduces visibility. But I'm not considering the visibility aspect, and I guess to answer my own question then, LC ceases to be LC the moment you can no longer asperate due to being too dense with solid material.... but that's kindofa given.

I'll give up pretty soon here before I get too annoying, I already feel like I'm talking in circles - either I'm not explaining things well, or I'm just confusing myself!

i reading 6 responses i had to stop, it is probably the weight of the substrate. Like a wet pf jar, it wont colonize the bottom becasue it it too dense, water isnt super dense. You can jump into water from 40 feet high but you wouldnt want to jump into over saturated wbs from forty feet, it would be like cement. This is why you can flip over an over saturated pf jar and it will colonize then.

--------------------Stop experimenting half way through your first grow. Grow it to maturity, watch it, learn from it. Do this a few times then experiment with different ideas and figure out what works best for you.

Myc doesnt "thrive" in liquid cultures the way it does a block of poo. The poo become SOLIDLY colonized. Myc will grow ok within water, but if you have a soppy mess of a substrate (like a liquid culture) it will never FULLY colonize into a hard mass.

--------------------"life is like a drop of rain getting closer and closer to falling into a lake, and then when you hit the lake there is no more rain drop, only the lake."

In jars and substrates it is not because of too much water, but what the water does to the substrate. The substrate becomes thick and very dense, which makes the "roots" of the mushies have a very hard time reaching into it. In a liquid culture there is no substrate blocking it from spreading. Lets say you were in a pool of mud or a pool of water. Which would be the easiest for you to move around in? Its the same with the substrates.